Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in the studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
GRANT HENRY SAID:
On July 7th last year, CNN wrote the following headline: “Coronavirus Almost Certainly Came from an Animal, Not a Lab Leak.” However, fast-forward a few months, and an MSN headline reads, “There’s More Evidence That COVID-19 Started in the Lab, Experts Say.”
And this BBC headline here says “COVID Origin: Why the Wuhan Lab Leak Theory Is Being Taken Seriously.” On November 24, 2020, Reuters ran this headline: “Studies Show COVID-19 Lockdowns Have Saved Lives.”
Yet just this last week, John Hopkins came out with a new study stating that the lockdowns “contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing school and causing public and political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy, but they had little effect on actually lowering the death rate.”
Lastly, who can forget about the absolute gem from Rachel Maddow that she dropped on us in March of 2021? Rarely have we seen a more sanctimonious version of this lady, Rachel Maddow. But she fully committed to this take when she went on about a two-minute tirade-rant where she basically indicated that once you get the vaccine, it stops there.
It cannot use another individual as a host to jump from person to person to person. As I said, she was committed to this take. However, just a few months after this mad rant, the CDC released two reports making it clear that some vaccinated people can get breakthrough infections and become contagious.
And over the past few years, if you were even to attempt to challenge any of these narratives just heard, you would have been banned from your social media accounts. No questions asked. No reason given. I mean, my goodness.
Is it any wonder the Joe Rogan debate is as hot as it is right now? The problem here is not just our media. Mainstream media has been a lost cause in this country for decades. The bigger issue is, why are mainstream media doing what they are doing?
The underlying problem in our media right now is a particular way of thinking, a cognitive distortion that we have been almost clinically conditioned to accept as normal. What I’m talking about is something called dichotomous thinking, in Jonathan Haidt’s book The Coddling of the American Mind.
He makes the argument that many of us have been essentially brainwashed to think that there are only two options to every problem. It must be either one or two. A or B, white or black. Yes or no. Or think of it this way: oppressed or the oppressor. A victim or the victimized. The minority or the majority.
The point is that dichotomous thinking encourages inferior thinking by promising the reward of superior feeling. It encourages inferior thinking by promising the reward of superior feeling, thereby giving media the ability to manipulate their viewers.
This kind of thinking leaves no room for analytical thought. It leaves no room for nuanced conversation. Yet, these things were needed the most over the last two years – analytical thought and nuanced conversation, the very things that some have been brainwashed to no longer accept.
During the time when we needed to listen to experts from every viewpoint, the media and academia forced us to pick a team, pick a side, and blindly commit. This kind of irrational volatility is unsustainable. But I’m here to tell you today to stand strong in your convictions. Do not waver in your reliance on objective truth. The coalition for rationality is at an all-time low, but we need every single one of you to remain steadfast to your principles.
The only way out of this quagmire is to roll that ball back up the hill it came from, one step at a time. And as Marcus Aurelius said, the impediment to action is the action. The obstacle is the way. The struggle is where we find growth.
We will use this time as an opportunity for people who are capable of rational thought to help those that are not. And through these tumultuous times, we become stronger. Conservatives become more complete, more empathetic, better able to present our worldview and grow our ranks in the process.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
